from Persistent to Consistent

Trading Results

So more than six months down the line I’m finally giving this page an update. Yes, it’s been an age coming but I’ve got two reasons to make an effort

Everyone checks out this page so it needs updating (doh!)

There’s actually some evidence that I’m learning stuff/improving

Right, down to business. EXHIBIT (A)

This is a trades won/lost plot from Jan 2011 to present which basically shows that I’ve been winning more trades than I’ve lost since about December 2011. If anyone notices ‘not a lot of trades’ then yes, this is because currently I’m working full time.

As written elsewhere I’ve also (right now) got a whole new market perspective to internalise before I start taking more trades.

Here’s EXHIBIT (B)

Yes this does indeed show winning trade amounts have been greater than losing trade amounts. I’ll just be real clear here that this is not earth shaking money at all but right now I’m still at the ‘CPR on the plastic dummy’ stage rather than full blown brain surgery.

I guess this page update is mainly around me saying ‘Hey, I’m actually learning things and improving my trading!’ In fact it’s only about that and that’s fine. And now the dance…

The paragraph and table below are from January 2011 when I started this blog – then I subsequently stopped fractional reporting but track through the highs and lows of previous comments if you feel so inclined.

Standard proviso applies in so far as much of what’s written in 2011 is essentially total crap and shouldn’t be followed other than as ‘what not to do’ type information.

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

I’ve decided to collate my results into some sort of order.

At the moment this doesn’t go into individual trade level detail because I’m trying to figure out a smart (lazy) way of doing this without duplicating work…

Week

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

Date

11/04

18/04

25/05

02/05

09/05

16/05

23/05

30/05

% +/-

0.80%

Hols

1.10%

(6.44%)

Work

0.14%

(6.34%)

(1.14%)

Week

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

Date

06/06

13/06

20/06

27/6

04/07

11/07

18/07

25/07

% +/-

Work

1.14%

1.14%

(5.87%)

(1.37%)

0.3%

1.67%

(0.99%)

Week

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

Date

01/08

08/08

15/08

22/08

29/08

05/09

12/09

19/09

% +/-

2.69%

Work

Hols

0.64%

(9.25%)

0.43%

4.73%

2.99%

Week

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

32

Date

26/09

03/10

10/10

17/10

24/10

31/10

07/11

14/11

pts +/(-)

1/(35)

60/(61)

2/(9)

work

0/(3)

0/(0)

6/(0)

7/(0)

Win/Loss

1/(2)

4/(4)

1/(1)

work

0/(1)

0/(0)

2/(0)

4/(0)

Week

33

34

35

36

37

38

39

40

Date

21/11

28/11

05/12

12/12

19/12

26/12

02/01

09/01

pts +/(-)

2/(0)

49/(68)

12/(0)

2/(0)

xmas

xmas

work

work

Win/Loss

2/(0)

6/(4)

1/(0)

1/(0)

xmas

xmas

work

work

Updated: 18/01/12

I’ve decided to suspend results reporting for the moment because it’s not helping my psychology. To be sure as soon as things have moved out of their current ‘sideways’ direction I’ll be sure to turn it all back on😉 Hopefully will also be able to explain how this helped and what steps I’ve taken to move everything forwards.

In the meantime here’s a P&L graph which illustrates the current ‘sideways’ theme…

Weekly comments

(40) See note above ref: results records

(39) First week back at work – way too much to do and am also writing an actual plan for my trading which will work off a much higher timeframe

(38) See below

(37) Some commercial festivities or other😉

(36) Writing a trading plan focussing a lot on trade management which is where I’m very weak indeed. This should have been a +45 pt trade…

(35) Not really possible for me to trade this week but made a good entry point and then kept the profits near the start of the week

(34) Results analysis… More winners than losers BUT size of losing trades greater than winning trades by 100%… needs more work

(33) Still sideways…

(32) Still sideways. Good entry decisions and bad trade management = more to learn

Hi Matt – I certainly don’t have any regrets publishing my results. Couple of reasons for this – they’re percentage gains/losses on the previous week rather than £$Cash amounts so I’m not disclosing ‘private’ data but you can see the overall trend or progress (or lack of). Secondly, I’ve nothing to sell and I’m not proposing that I’m some sort of trading ‘guru’. I’m a beginner😉

I think it helps from the perspective of keeping me honest with myself. What I mean by that is it’s easy, especially in the beginning, to convince yourself that you’re good at something when you actually suck. This doesn’t just apply to trading. The aim is to be consistently profitable over time. It’s a little difficult to know if you’re near achieving that goal if you don’t measure this stuff.

I believe it also helps me answer the question ‘Why did that happen?’ If I’m going to post a week where I lost >6% of my account I’d also better do the analysis to figure out how I managed to screw up so badly. So in some ways this also helps me to confront the reality of the situation, rather than burying my head in the sand. It’s important to ‘keep it real’ and with trading the reality is all about whether you’re profitable on an upward curve🙂

1) I’m sure the trend is clear and publishing points won/lost is all I’m willing to share. I consider my specific financial information to be private.

2) Nope, I’ve not read that but I will check it out. Thanks for bringing it to my attention🙂

3) I’m currently under-capitalised and time poor so Anton’s approach won’t benefit me in my current situation. However, compared to most other people offering training in the UK his approach is logical, fits into a macro world-view and relies on quality thinking. The fact that he publishes his own results is also very rare compared to the ‘learn to trade in half an hour before bedtime’ crap you see everywhere. As my understanding grows I will be coming back to this way of doing things. It does require you to think for yourself and is based on ideas which is why it appeals to me.

I didn’t see the point of doing anything else results wise since I’m learning and also have nothing to sell. I’m looking at a multiple lot approach which will enable me to take some profits off the table as well as leave some on – working the problem from both ends!

Also now being very disciplined about keeping to specific entries/setups and learning them one at a time rather than just throwing money at the screen😉

Wow, you are having fun.
In December 2011 I went on Jimmy Young’s seminar, thought I had better find out what I was doing right. At the start he said the he wanted to improve our odds from 50:50 chance to 55:45 in our favour. I put my hand up and asked if I was doing something wrong as I had well over 1,000 successive winning trades and showed him my record.
Anyhow, I did learn from him, particularly about news trading – i had wondered why we had “kicks” at 9.30 am!
I would say that what I do is far more simple than what you or Jimmy do but I know that i would not swap my record with you or him.
Keep following my blog and bit by bit it will become clear just how simple this can be.
By the way, I prefer the MT4 platform to IG as I get better spreads. Sign up and have a look at GKFX via one of my websites http://www.ravenglen.com . GKFX are one of only 2 mT4 platform providers offering spread betting.

I’m no example at all regards my trading record so can’t see you have a reason to swap😉

What I hope to be able to do is share what I did that helped me go from consistent loser, to flat-lining and then onto consistent winner. Hence the blog and yes it’s fun although it’s helped that I’m committed to getting there but just have realised the ‘process’ of trading (and learning) is way more important than getting side-tracked day-dreaming of the end goal.

The MT4 platform does look/performs better than the IG Advanced charts which are all Java driven.
I will check out GKFX so thanks for the link.

I’ve expanded my remit outside of Jimmy’s approach since looking at 5 minute charts while holding down a job full time is proving to be almost impossible. Well for me anyway😉 The one thing Jimmy made clear (as you’ll have experienced at the seminar) was how little knowledge I had about the field I was entering. Things have now changed and (hopefully) I’m now in the final throes of putting together a trading plan that will work for me within the time constraints that I have and my psychology.